Central Banks Seek More Ammo for the Bazooka

The ECB goes deeper into negative rates while the Federal Reserve is likely to hold off for now. One radical option: Drop money from the helicopter.

Pity the poor central bankers of the world. They’re having a harder time than ever pushing out torrents of money into the world’s economies.

First they reduced interest rates to zero. Then they bought boatloads of bonds with money they conjured up electronically and shoveled out the door. But still, they had to get even more creative by cutting interest rates below the previously presumed lower boundary of zero. Negative interest rates turned the world upside down, with depositors and bond investors paying for the...